


Look At Us Now

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, Episode: s03e12 The Sound of Drums, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Episode: s04e17 The End of Time (1), Episode: s04e18 The End of Time (2), Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-17
Updated: 2010-04-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7198295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master reflects on his relationship with the Doctor and where it went wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look At Us Now

**Author's Note:**

> Rated just to be safe and because it unsettles me in ways that aren't concrete enough to have their own warning tag.
> 
> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

  
Author's note: So this bunny attacked me after End of Time and it's obviously related to the Monty Python one from Holy Grail because it wouldn't leave me alone.<br /><br />It has gone through much editing though I still don't know if it's perfect. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. And maybe leave me a review to let me know what you thought and if there's any way in which I could improve it.  


* * *

It has been a very long time. He reflects on this bitterly as he paces the wasteland. The twisted surroundings reflect the mess he has made of his mind. Such a very long time.

He can remember his youth, although some of the memories flicker now. Like film that has been watched too many times and has worn out, too damaged to run smoothly. He remembers the grass, taller than he was and of such deep red that later he spills blood just to watch that dry sea reflected in it.

But before any of that violence came to pass, before the beat overwhelmed him and the need for control began to rise in a tide that has never really stopped. Before he began to build the oceans of blood that drown and embody the beat. Before it all went wrong; he remembers running through the grass.

* * *

__

_There is no sound this far from the house and the shining cities. No sound but his feet hitting the ground so very softly as his legs carry him swiftly through the forest of foliage. He feels powerful. There is nothing out here but his own breathless laughter, half true and half the giddy, delighted hysteria that has caught him up in the chase. Half excitement and half anticipation so intense it almost borders on fear. The blood, pounding from the exertion of running, is drowning out the beat in his mind and the light caress of the grass, so tender against his exposed skin only serves to heighten all sensation._

_He calls up at the sky, almost a hint to his pursuer, a part of the game. Although the frantic and ever so slightly uneven rhythm of his hearts tells him this is serious. Or almost serious. He wants to be caught so desperately yet half the pleasure is in the thrill of the chase. Of being chased. And he never wants this to end._

_“Look at us now!” He calls, pausing to listen for sounds of pursuit. There is no audible movement but he turns to run anyway, picking a direction at random._

_Then, suddenly there is a sound, a hint of movement at the corner of his eye and he hardly has time to turn before anothery body crashes into his. But he doesn’t mind The bruises and scrapes are cushioned by the grass as they tumble down together. Kisses, soft and always slightly off target are distracting him until he feels like he’s burning._

_For a moment there is play that borders on conflict – a part of the uneasy transition that they are now undertaking; a part of the transformation that is not really a game. It is far removed from the childish grappling they have left behind but not yet the conflict of fully fledged adults. They are experimenting, teasing their way into an understanding._

_Then, for a single moment, he is pinned and panic subsumes the joy because he cannot be bested. He must never be bested. But there is a smile in the bright eyes above him and the weight shifts to the side, moment of victory over. Panic subsides. Forgotten in all its intensity._

_He shifts to lie flush with his captor, reaching out to trace a thumb across the delicate skin under one brown eye as it watches the sky, feeling the muscles shift as it transfers its gaze to him. He relishes the trust and intimacy inherent in the single gesture. This is not a game then. This has nothing to do with childhood.  
“Look at us now…” He whispers softly, words for those eyes alone. As they have been all along._

__

* * *

It is years before he says those words again, though he thinks of them often. Years and lifetimes have passed him by and they are both different people. The Doctor and the Master. But it’s still those eyes he speaks to. Still those eyes he speaks for, fights for, longs for until he can’t have them. Until he can’t really remember how they used to look at him and suddenly he hates them. Hates them with the same burning passion but none of the tender feelings. All else drowned out by the constant drumming.

And in this horribly changed universe, with the twisted desire to see those eyes filled with tears. Broken. Pleading. In this world he screams the words across a battlefield. Knowing that they will be recognised. Hoping they will be understood. Not as the endearment they were so long ago but as a challenge. An expression of his desire to reclaim the Doctor as Theta laid claim to Koschei. A declaration of his desire to see this imposter bent and broken and bleeding at his will and whim. Fallen at his feet. It is then that he screams.

“Look at us now!”

They are recognised with pain and tolerance so heartbreaking it almost shatters his own façade. But it doesn’t because it can’t. Nor will it ever. He has made his choice. They both have. And now they have to live with those choices because they can’t be changed. He has to live with the walls he has built because they can’t be broken down. From within or from without.

* * *

__

_Another set of lives pass them by in years that matter as little as motes of dust in the sun. War overwhelms them and the Doctor becomes embroiled in the politics of a world he fled long ago. But the Master is scared and so he runs. Not just from the war but from the Doctor and the past they share that is somehow stronger here on Gallifrey. He feels true fear, not the beautiful but only half-remembered intensity from the fields so long ago._

_But it seems even now he cannot escape because the Doctor finds him, just as he did then and they fight once more. That interminable struggle of wills so much more deadly now. None of the game and all of the rage._

_And somehow he has the Doctor at his mercy. Finally broken down. He’s finally won a game he doesn’t remember. And the prize is bitterness. Bitterness and a world he doesn’t want._

_So the rage burns brighter than ever, fanned by the drums, and he takes it out on everyone around him. On Lucy and the freak who cannot die. But most of all on the Doctor. Because there’s still something about him. Even after he figures out that the creatures the Master commands are the last of his precious humans. Reduced to nothing but shells and pain. Even after he stops talking there’s resistance in the back of his eyes. A tenuous grip on his precious hope._

_So the Master devotes all the time and energy he can to destroying that. He revels in the destruction of the TARDIS and toys with the Doctor’s personal time stream because he knows just how sick it makes him. Old then young. Younger then old then older then young. Tastes the Doctor, fingers buried in his hair and knuckles white as he holds on. He lets him think he’s broken down barriers and found Koschei, cowering at the back of his mind, then he throws him back into the cells to languish. He finds everyone the Doctor has ever cared about, ever met and kills them slowly and painfully. In the freak’s case, many times over. But he still can’t crush that hope._

_Hope which is realised, as it turns out. And now it’s the Master who’s broken. Bleeding out in the Doctor’s arms, revelling in the atron energy trying to save him as the Doctor cries for the memories. And perhaps the walls are just a little bit cracked now. Perhaps those tears wear them down a bit and the last sight he sees is the Doctor’s despair. But his joy is tainted because the Doctor loves him and he’s falling. He wants to reach out and touch Theta’s cheek but the Master’s hand are too stained with blood and the walls that can’t fall are far too high._

__

* * *

And now there is hardly any time but unbearable change before he even sees him again. Sees the Doctor. And he has new life coursing through his veins. Like before but also not like before. It’s almost like when they were young. But darker. As corrupted as his youth was innocent and repressed. It’s flooding through him, ahead of the beat and in the wake of the Doctor’s tears. The walls he has built up are trembling at its approach. The walls that have contained him, trapping him in with the beat and protecting him for so long.

And that’s why he does everything he can to dissuade the Doctor’s approach. That’s why he runs and hides and does his best to hurt the Doctor. He cannot do this again. The walls cannot come down.

But they are. They’re falling and so he stumbles forward, through the widening gaps to catch the Doctor. Catch him once more in his arms even as the last of the lightning crackles at the touch of his skin. He stumbles forward with movements that were once graceful to catch the Doctor in a grip that is at once both practiced and new.

For a second they stare into each others eyes like star crossed lovers. Just for a second because they’re not. A second and then he lets go. Lets the Doctor fall. Because the world is reasserting itself. Because he wants to be the one who used to lower him gently in the grass under the silver trees. He wants there to be tenderness and light like there was before. He wants to strip away the competition and shatter the Doctor’s shell because now there are walls there too. He wants it to be just the two of them. Without these new names or pretences. So he lets him fall. Because he’s afraid. Because he can see the stars they might have crossed in the Doctor’s eyes and the sight terrifies him.

But he still needs to remember. He wants the Doctor to be just as confused and lost and hurt as he is. Not safe within those walls. Because he never should have built his own walls. The Doctor should have been there to pull down the walls that make up the Master, not hiding behind his own. And this make him furious once more. His grip on sanity is slipping just a little further away. So he reminds him, locking their gazes together and wishing they still fit as perfectly as they once did.  
“Look at us now.” He whispers bitterly.

* * *

__

_And then he’s alone. The drumming comes back, drowning everything out and replacing the walls because he’s free. He doesn’t need the Doctor because it’s real. He doesn’t need anything because he has himself. He welcomes the drumming, louder without he walls, and takes joyous flight like that of the phoenix. Ever burning him and ever his salvation._

_“Look at me now.”_

__

* * *

But then it shifts beneath him, changing once more in a pattern he can never quite make out over the drum beat that is now just the beat of his hearts. And the Doctor is at his feet once more, bloodied but not broken. Fallen but enraged. He is powerful and he is terrifying, even in the face of the war torn council. The time lords run mad.

And he sees the desperation and can almost catch a glimpse of a time when the Doctor was broken. Not by his words or actions, his flight or anything he could ever have done. Instead he was broken by his own decisions. Broken by the choices chance laid out before him.

He should have been there.

It is a moment of remorse that touches him. Almost makes him reach out for the Doctor in the darkness. But even now he’s too far gone. The madness and the desperation are taking over. They owe him now, don’t they. They’ve destroyed his life. They’ve destroyed the Doctor. 

Destroyed his plans and manipulated him into saving them. It’s masterful. He would be impressed if the rage wasn’t pulling him down. They owe him. They should be grateful.  
But apparently not. He is too broken. Too broken for them. So like a child that has destroyed their favourite plaything his society sees fit to cast him aside. Too broken for the Doctor too. So he finds himself with a gun pointed at his head and vile pleas spouting forth without any real thought as the last ounce of feeling within shakes its head sadly at him.

But he is delighted to find he can still understand the Doctor. He is still able to follow his thoughts at the speed of light. He probably still loves him, even if the walls have hidden that fact and the drums deafened him for so long.

And a tiny piece of him thrills that the Doctor cannot fire even as he eggs him on. Prove it to me. Prove that you don’t love me. That I am too broken. That you cannot love me. Prove that it was all a lie. That you never loved me.

“Go on then.”

A broken whisper and his hearts tremble with fear even as the first tears he has cried for himself threaten to spill over the rough stubble on his cheeks.

But suddenly everything has shifted again and they’re together. Fighting like they used to play and run and move together. The game is much more deadly now but he’s discovered that he can use his hands, steeped as they are in blood, to fix at least some of the damage. He can punish those who have twisted everything he and Theta once had and were.

And as the white light subsumes all he has only one thought. He turns back and sees the same words on the Doctor’s lips as those dark eyes watch him disappear.

Look at us now…


End file.
